New York: 1962-1964 - by Germano Celant (Paperback)

Book Synopsis

Charting the three momentous years in which New York became the global capital of art

Recipient of the The 2023 Alice Award

The radical cultural transformations that occurred in New York in the three years between January 1962 and December 1964 ramified across the world. In addition to a whole host of creative innovations across disciplines, the period also saw a shift in the center of artistic gravity from Europe to the United States and the rise of a new leadership in the arts--curators, gallerists and other impresarios. Modeled on the scale and format of Life magazine (one of the most widely read publications of the era), this lavishly illustrated oversized paperback traces a detailed itinerary of artists and curators, experimental exhibitions and museums, as well as historical and political events that transformed society during this explosive moment. From the New Realists exhibition at Sidney Janis Gallery in 1962 to Robert Rauschenberg's unexpected win of the International Grand Prize in Painting at the 1964 Venice Biennale, every groundbreaking event from this incredible three-year period is documented.
Organized chronologically, the book is teeming with images of artworks and archival photographs, and artist interviews conducted by the late great curator Germano Celant.
Artists include: Diane Arbus, Lee Bontecou, Chryssa, Merce Cunningham, Jim Dine, Melvin Edwards, Dan Flavin, Lee Friedlander, Nancy Grossman, Jasper Johns, Donald Judd, Ellsworth Kelly, Yayoi Kusama, Norman Lewis, Roy Lichtenstein, Marisol, Agnes Martin, Louise Nevelson, Isamu Noguchi, Claes Oldenburg, Yvonne Rainer, Robert Rauschenberg, Faith Ringgold, Larry Rivers, James Rosenquist, Miriam Schapiro, Carolee Schneemann, George Segal, Jack Smith, Harold Stevenson, Marjorie Strider, Mark di Suvero, Bob Thompson and Andy Warhol.

Review Quotes

Episodic, editorial, and even with ads that feel like unexpected, welcome upgrades. A true time capsule.-- "AIGA"

A packed time capsule, one that includes a detailed timeline of three fire-starting years of public violence, disobedience and liberation. With blast-from-the-past (and echoes-in-the-present) images on every page, it has the pull of a fast-paced documentary film.--Holland Cotter "New York Times: Arts"

Stuffed full of energy, focusing on a three-year period in New York City when sundry creative realms coalesced in a delirious apogee of full-blown American vanguardism.--Jan Avgikos "Artforum"

A spectacular show of art and documentation...The global contexts rhyme in energy if not in direct relevance with an insurgent avant-gardism in New York which rejected modernist detachment in order to engage lived realities.--Peter Schjeldahl "New Yorker"

Art in New York in the early 1960s made for a heady mix. Culturally, we were perched on the edge of something and leaning forward. And a fast flip through the show's catalog, an illustrated three-year timeline edited by Celant and designed by Michael Rock, gives a sense of a larger -- national, global -- teetering condition.--Holland Cotter "New York Times"

Certainly at the moment our fair city's most enveloping visual and aural museum experience.--Suzaan Boettger "Brooklyn Rail"

Its dazzling and generous survey overflows with justifiable nostalgia for an age that, however brief, truly was golden.--Ariella Budick "Financial Times"

1962-1964 manages to encapsulate the artistic explosion taking place in New York in the early sixties in art, in dance, and in poetry.--Alfred Mac Adam "Brooklyn Rail"

Start[s] a conversation about an especially fertile time in the art world's capital. Featuring well-known names like Jasper Johns, Faith Ringgold and Merce Cunningham, it also may introduce artists like Marjorie Strider to the public.--Ted Loos "New York Times: Arts"